kids are potty train's 2 1/2-year-olds. >> i'm in the process into how do you do it? >> you just go. you do it. the girls are almost potty trained. since january they've been in prescho preschool. i'm able to work during the day or personally train people when they're in school. >> "american morning" continues right now. i'm kiran chetry. rupert murdoch's media empire under fire. his reporters how accused of illegally invading the privacy of britain's former prime minister as this hacking scandal widens. we're live from london ahead. >> i'm ali velshi. much of the country literally feeling the heat and relief from the summer scotcher may be days away on this "american morning." and good morning to you. thanks so much for being with us on this "american morning." it's tuesday, july 12th. christine has the morning off. >> we've got a lot of news this

morning, including some breaking news out of afghanistan. >> that's right. we begin there where afghan president hamid karzai's half brother was found shot to death at his home. ahmed wali karzai was the provençal council chief of kandahar. he suffered gunshot wounds to his head and chest according to hospital officials. a spokesman for kandahar's government said a guard killed karzai. the taliban says -- >> we've seen the worst so far. excessive heat warnings and advisories posted in 23 states. the heat in many areas could reach 115 degrees. the heat wave is being blamed for one death in madison county, illinois. in oklahoma it was so hot, that part of a highway buckled. look at that. motorist was hospitalized after

his bike hit the buckled pavement. in arkansas several communities have opened cooling centers. good rule of thumb in tis heat whatever you're doing don't overdo it. >> if you're going to go outside in heat like this better be drinking a lot of water before you come out. make sure you have some substance in your stomach or you might be going to the hospital. >> it was hard to stay focused because it was so hot out. >> dehydrated, exhausted, just tired. >> right now nearly 400,000 people in the chicago area are still without power following the worst storm in a decade. utility officials say it could be several days before many of those customers are back on-line. the video we're looking at here, i think you saw an airplane there, i'm not sure, which video we're dealing with, this one is capturing the sheer force of the storm as it blew through rockford, illinois. left debris on the road making for stretch russ driving conditions. cnn's rob marciano is extracting this extreme weather

for us at the cnn weather center in atlanta. boy, for people who have to work outside today especially it is going to be tough. >> here's the thing with this heat, guys, like you're dying for a thunderstorm. something just to cool you off. but with this kind of heat and humidity buildup you can get thunderstorms like in chicago where we still have almost a half million people without power. tremendous amount of wind energy. tremendous amount of real estate under a heat advisories and excessive heat warnings and we haven't seen a ton of record-breaking heat. that's because the humidity is so high, it's kind of keeping some of the high temperatures down. but it's making it feel more miserable and dangerous and more important to stay hydrated. heat indices maybe reaching as high as 115 today and the heat warnings and watches extend now all the way up into the northeast. so, places like d.c. and new york, will easily see temperatures that will be over 90 and heat indices over 100 degrees in some spots. today and tomorrow, little rock seeing 104, expected to see 104

degrees for a heat index in memphis, 107 expected in montgomery and through thursday, not looking for a whole lot of relief from this and some of these areas we've seen temperatures over 100 degrees for over a week. here's your cold front, which this time of year, doesn't make a whole lot of progress to the south. we're in the thick of it as far as the steaminess goes. in the northeast, may see a little cool off, but not today. temperatures up and over 90 degrees. i wouldn't be surprised if d.c. in some spots touches 100 degrees today. try to stay cool. back up to you. >> thanks. an explosive new development in britain's tabloid hacking scandal leaving rupert murdoch's media empire reeling. according to published reports murdoch's reporter illegally accessed the bank accounts of former prime minister gordon brown and also the medical records of his seriously ill son. brown is now accusing murdoch's newspapers of having links with criminals, these on the heels of

a phone hacking scandal that forced murdoch to shut down "news of the world" sunday and his plans to take over british sky broadcasting have been disrupted with news corps's market value taking a multibillion dollar hit. let's go to dan rivers, live in london with the growing scandal. what is the latest, dan? >> well, this war of words is escalating involving gordon brown. gordon brown has given an interview this morning in which he talked about his complete revulsion and shock at having his personal details accessed by newspapers, not the "news of the world" this time, but other international newspapers, "the sun" and "the sunday times" and what particularly has angered and shocked him, the suggestion that his son's medical records were obtained by "the sun"

newspaper in which they went with a story talking about cystic fibrosis his son had. he said this is completely unacceptab unacceptable. he never wanted his son to be put in the public eye in any way. it was completely private. "the sun" says it managed to get the records without breaking the law legitimately and decided to run with the story. this story is not dying down, this rout. this morning some of the police involved in the past and now with this story are going to be questioned by a powerful committee of politicians and we're expecting that may produce some new information on all this, particularly john yates, the man that initially investigated all these claims of phone hacking and said look, there's just a handful of people who have been targeted, it's basically not a big deal, now he's realized what a catastrophic error of judgment that was because the woman that's replaced him on this

inquiry, sue acres, is saying up to 4,000 people could have been targeted by the newspapers. >> what about the implications that this is not just the now defunct "news of the world," but other papers? >> yeah. i think this is really significant and really bad news for news international. it's no longer just confined to "news of the world," the paper that they closed down, realizing it had become toxic as a brand. it's now spread to "the sun" and "sunday times." both so far have not been shown to have used phone hacking, but they have been shown to use what, at best, slightly underhand techniques, at worst illegal activities to get information. "the sun" is maintaining it got the medical records without breaking the law. "the sunday times" saying there was a legitimate public interest in looking into gordon brown's bank details and so on on a tip, but there was some sort of

corruption there or something which was all proved to be untrue. but i think this is spreading now and that's really, really bad news for news international and rupert murdoch. >> dan rivers in london, thanks so much. happening now in london, wikileaks founder julian assange in court and appealing his extradition to swede wherein he's wanted on sexual misconduct allegations. assange remains in the u.k. under house arrest. the warrant is not related to the release of confidential u.s. documents. and tensions between the syrian regime and the u.s. reaching a new high this morning. mobs have attacked the u.s. embassy in damascus. yesterday crowds surrounded the building, breaking windows and using spray paint. no one was hurt. the violence comes as secretary of state hillary clinton unleashed her strongest criticisms of bashar al assad. >> president assad is not indispensable and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power. our goal is to see that the will

of the syrian people, for a democratic transformation occurs. >> clinton went on to say assad has lost his legitimacy and trying to reflect attention on his crackdown of peaceful protesters. the obama administration moving forward on a plan for gun dealers in four border states in mexico to do extra work. they have to report the sales of high-powered rifles under certain conditions. it's part of an effort to stem the flow of drugs to mexican drug cartels. the national rifle association says it will sue to stop the new requirements. and a crowd of protesters get rowdy and shut down a san francisco subway station. it hapned last night. the group calling itself no justice no bart was upset after transit police shot and killed a drunk man waving a knife at the same station last week. so far no officers have been charged in that shooting. bart is the metro, the subway

system there. >> bay area rapid transit. or known as bart. the massive cheating scandal involving several public schools in atlanta has cost four superintendents and a principal their jobs. these firings come less than a week after dozens of educators were accused of changing grades and falsifying standardized test scores. also this morning, a new suburban dallas school superintendent has been put on paid leave because she used to be a deputy superintendent in the atlanta school system. this morning, the crew of the space shuttle "atlantis" woke up to the sound of matthew west and his single "more." ♪ shine you are mine and you shine for me too ♪ >> good tunes to wake up to. today will be the last spacewalk conducted with a visiting shuttle crew present. nasa is extending the shuttle's mission an extra day. "atlantis" and its crew are scheduled to return next thursday at 5:56 eastern. the spacewalk is due to start at about a quarter to 9:00 eastern

today. yesterday we were like wow, that yankee fan who returned derek jeter's ball, what a great thing. didn't ask for a dime. but the irs may come after christian lopez the one who caught jeter's 3,000 hit. a home run into the leftfield on saturday. "new york times" had a chance to talk to tax lawyers who say the 23-year-old fan who owes more than $100,000 in student loans may owe taxes on gifts from the yankees. remember they gave him the seats. maybe more than $14,000 worth of taxes. the team moved him to $1500 seats on saturday and they also gave him luxury box tickets for the rest of the year. so it's our question of the day. do you think that christian lopez may have been better off not catching jeter's home run? let us know what you think. send us an e-mail, tweet, tell us on facebook and we'll your thoughts later in the hour. still to come on "american morning," about to get harder to indulge in the double bacon cheeseburger and fries without feeling guilty. we'll tell you why.

rupert murdoch's media empire taking a financial hit as a phone hacking scandal spreads way beyond the tabloids. and after that phone hacking scandal forced murdoch to shut down "news of the world," how vulnerable is your phone? brian todd shows us three easy ways that hackers can break into your voice mail. you're watching "american morning." 12 minutes past the hour. [ male announcer ] introducing the ultimate business phone --

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welcome back to "american morning." they're deadlocked in d.c. and it's hitting you. stocks dropped yesterday in part because the talks to cut the deficit and raise the nation's debt ceiling went nowhere again. that's part of the problem. the other part of the problem is that europe's debt crisis continues its bleeding into italy now. the dow lost 152 points at the closing bell, the nasdaq was down 57 points, the s&p 500 down 24. the dow was down about 1.2%. all around the world, markets are tumbling, the nikkei, hang

sang and hong kong, london's ftse, all are down. you like the pair ras cac, it's down as well. >> the italy thing is troublesome. we talk about pigs, portugal, ireland, greece and spain, but italy is the third largest economy in europe and their percentage of debt to gdp or however that goes is pretty troubling. >> they just need somebody to start moving out of this thing and we're not seeing that. we're seeing more countries getting into it and that affects us here. one key player in all of this discussion, world markets and, of course, our debt and deficit talks here at home, timothy geithner, the treasury secretary. the treasury pulled off a few financial tricks i guess you could say to keep us from hitting the debt limit back in may. geithner is expected to speak today in a little over two hours from now. we'll see if he has anything to say about the ongoing crisis this morning. >> the partisan sdifds is getting only deeper with each talks. the president and hill leaders have agreed to meet today, with

only 22 days until the nation is unable to make its payments because of the debt ceiling. the president says it's more like eight days really because the way things move in washington they need the time to put in the legislation to make sure everything goes smoothly. no one knows for sure what could happen to the global economy if these talks fail. republicans are still saying no deal if it includes tax hikes and some democrats are saying don't touch medicare in the negotiations. the president repeatedly saying it is time to get serious. >> we might as well do it now. now is the time to do it. now is the time to deal with these issues. if not now, when? what i've said to them is, let's go. >> go ahead. >> live at the white house for us this morning, so the president, you know, was -- came out with strong language yesterday saying look i'm willing to take heat from my own party, i hope the gop is willing to do the same. >> that's right. that's why he called them back

to the white house. this will be the third meeting now this week, but no significant progress made yesterday. the point, though, that the president continued to point to that he wants the biggest deal possible, the most comprehensive deal. as you pointed out he told republicans he's willing to take some heat from his party so he's urging them to do the same. on this issue of raising taxes during a difficult economic period, the president making the case that any of this would not take place until 2013. the bottom line, though, is that the president is not willing to accept any temporary agreement because this, he says, would only push the problem down the road. >> i will not sign a 30-day or a 60-day or a 90-day extension. that is just not an acceptable approach. if we think it's going to be hard -- hard now, imagine how these guys are going to be thinking six months from now in the middle of election season when they're all up. it's not going to get easier.

it's going to get harder. so we might as well do it now. pull off the band-aid. eat our peas. >> reporter: house speaker john boehner says this big gap, the divide, is about policy, not about process. he points out that republicans have been very honest in their discussions. he says that they, too, want to see a deal, but in his words, he says, it takes, quote, two to tango. kiran? >> dan lothian, thanks. house speaker john boehner isn't budging under pressure from both sides and the tea party wing of the gop and insisting no tax hikes in any deal. >> the american people will not accept and the house cannot pass a bill that raises taxes on job creators. the house can only pass a debt limit bill that includes spending cuts, larger than the hike in the debt limit, as well as real restraints on future spending.

>> all right. 7:10 eastern we're going to talk it to former treasury under secretary jay powell about what's at stake if the federal government can't cover the bills. he says hundreds of thousands of paychecks may be on the line if they're signed by uncle sam. thinking about buying a car, you might want to jump on it. also had it with screaming and crying kids while you eat. no kids allowed anymore. parents are saying, how rude. >> and our question of the day. do you think christian lopez would have been better off not catching derek jeter's home run. he may be on the hook for $14,000 in taxes even though he gave the ball back. send us an e-mail, tweet, tell us on facebook. we'll read some of your comments at the end of the hour. the rar. to those always searching for what's pure and what's real from we who believe we know just how you feel. haagen-dazs.

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23 minutes after the hour. minding your business this morning. uncertainty running high on wall street over europe's debt crisis to italy. u.s. stock futures trading much lower this morning following a rough session yesterday when the dow dropped a little more than 1%. both the nasdaq and the s&p 500 dropped 2%. some of america's biggest companies are reporting second quarter earnings today. jp morgan chase, citigroup, google all reporting later this week. analysts at thompson reuters are forecasting a 7.5% increase in

earnings for s&p 500 companies. news corporation stock taking a hit after it stalls in its bid to buy satellite tv company british sky broadcasting. shares of news corp dropped sharply more than 7.5% yesterday. support for the deal weakening after news of the phone hacking scandal at some of news corporations publications. the world's biggest name in networking systems cisco system slashing its work force by 10,000 jobs to revive profit group. according to a report by bloomberg a majority of the cuts could start by the end of summer. >> linkedin knocking down myspace as one of america's most popular social networks. myspace still has a higher number of active users, facebook is towering at number one for web traffic. full-size truck might be a bargain looking for a new car. automotive news data shows a glut in spri driving a price war between dealers to get the trucks off the lots. manufacturers had a strong start

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scorcher. the triple digit heat spreading from new england all the way to oklahoma and from the deep south to the ohio valley on this "american morning."

29 minutes after the hour. let me bring you up to speed on some of the top stories we're following right now. explosive new allegations in britain's hacking scandal. published reports say reporters with a second news corporation owned newspaper, illegally accessed the bank accounts of former british prime minister gordon brown and the medical records of his seriously ill son. brown accuses rupert murdock's newspapers of having, quote, links with criminals. >> afghan president hamid karzai's half brother has been found shot to death at his kandahar home. ahmed wali karzai was the pro vinceal council chief. he suffered gunshot wounds to his head and chest according to hospital officials. a spokesman says a guard killed karzai. the taliban says that guard was working for them. they all agree default is not an option but can president obama and congressional leaders agree on a deal to raise the government's borrowing limit? they're going to meet again today. some republicans are calling for a short-term measure before the

august 2nd deadline to allow more time for negotiations. the president says absolutely not. and it looks like another good day to stay inside and in the air conditioning. 23 states have posted warnings or advisories about the dangerous heat, the oppressive heat and humidity being blamed on one death in illinois. cnn's rob marciano is at the extreme weather center in atlanta. it seems barely anyone in the country is going to be able to be escaping this heat today. >> especially the eastern two-thirds of the country. remember, guys, that heat actually is the number one weather-related killer. take it seriously and check on your neighbors and your -- the elderly especially. not everybody has air conditioning and we need it in this sort of heat. we haven't seen a ton of record highs but the humidity, that's what's killing it here, right, as far as it feels like outside. heat indices will be up and over 100 degrees, some cases up to 115, pink areas from kansas city to memphis. the most dangerous spots. the watches have been extended

up and through the northeast. we're expanding the amount of heat that we're getting across the eastern two-thirds country. 98 expected in atlanta, 92 new york, maybe as high as 100 degrees in d.c. you include the humidity and we're looking at temperatures that will feel like they're up and over 100 degrees not only for today and tomorrow but the next couple days. we didn't have rough weather last night in chicago, still almost half a million people without power. check out the video out of rockford, illinois, where winds gusted to 80 miles an hour. looked like a hurricane through there. that will do damage to trees and power lines for sure. comed saying it may take several days for some spots to get back on-line as far as power goes. a nasty squall line that moved through the chicagoland area. guys, try to stay cool. it's going to be a steamy one in new york as well today. back up to you. >> rob, thanks. it's a trillion dollar showdown in d.c. right now. the white house democrats and republicans have just three weeks to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.

their failure could hit your family immediately. tom foreman is here to show us what a u.s. government default would feel like for the average american. >> reporter: ali, kiran, forget about all those trillions of dollars we're talking about in the budget talks. let's talk about what this might mean to an average household if the government goes into default. nobody really knows. but here are some of the possibilities people are talking about. fundamentally what could happen is interest rates and the value of money could change. that's the big issue here. so things like the value of your home, your interest rates if you're trying to buy a new one could rise, end up owing more on a mortgage if that happens. wanted to buy a car, same thing, the rates could go up higher. your gas prices could increase. your roads could be in poor quality, all because of the problem the government has borrowing money and how that affects the rest of the markets. let's say we're looking at the breadwinners in the house. dad is a small business owner. he could be unemployed.

that's a possibility. his savings could lose money. he could have a difficult time getting a loan to expand his business because money just gets tighter at times like this. say mom actually works for the government. she could wind up furloughed if they can't afford to pay for her. credit card rates could rise. the daughter in the house is in the military. her salary could be limited or delayed. possible ious from the government and contractors who make things for and provide services to the government, could have their own layoffs because if you can't support all she's doing you can't support what they do for her. the son trying to go to college here. student loans could be harder to obtain, restrictions on financial aid a that he hasn't faced so far and even grandma over here could wind up with her social security benefits delayed or possibly even reduced. the trick of all this is, while these are possibilities of what might happen if we go into default, many of them, as you might recognize, are all the things that might be on the

table as we simply try to cut back the budget. that's why so many people here in washington say we really are between a bit of a rock and hard place, not just for washington, but for people in their homes all over the country. >> good explanation. look, it's one of those things, it's nebulous. nobody really knows for sure what happens on august 2nd if we don't raise the debt ceiling. one thing somewhat satisfactory to me, seems like all the players involved in making a decision are largely on the same side, that it would be bad. >> claim they want to do everything possible to make sure we don't get to this point. they're cutting it a little close. >> ahead at 7:10 we're going to ask former undersecretary of the treasury, jay powell, what else is at stake if the federal government can't cover the bills. at that point the treasury department has to make decisions as to what gets paid. he says hundreds of thou sandss of paychecks may be on the line, paychecks signed by uncle sam. new this morning, french president nicolas sarkozy is on a trip to afghanistan announcing

plans for a french troop draw down. he says france will pull out a thousand of its troops by the end of 2012, following a timetable comparable to the u.s. troop withdraw. france currently has 3900 troops in afghanistan. a suspected u.s. drone strike in pakistan's remote tribal region killing 13 alleged militants. the target was an insurgent hideout in the area of south what zeer tan along the afghanistan border. two new york men arrested and accused of stealing thousands of dollars of rare documents from the maryland historical sign. one is barry lando. among the documents reportedly stolen papers side by abraham lincoln, some worth $300,000. this guy didn't ask for a dime, but the irs might come after the guy who caught derek jeter's 3,000th hit. home run into left field bleachers on saturday. "the new york times" talked to tax lawyers who say the fan who

owes $100,000 in student loans may owe taxes on gifts from the yankees. the team gave him great seats. right? >> like $1500 great seats. >> yeah. >> and they also gave him luxury box tickets for the rest of the year. >> this is our question of the day. do you think yankee fans christian lopez would have been better off not catching jeter's home run? send us an e-mail, tweet, tell us on facebook. we'll read some of your thoughts at the end of the hour. or catching it and dropping it. >> might be the video of the day by the way. take a look at steepest roller coaster. it looks like it goes inverse at some point. look at this thing. >> wow. >> it just opened at the fuji highland amusement park in tokyo. >> it means dominant in english. >> like you just didn't read that. it's 141 feet tall and it features a free-fall angle of

121 degrees. >> i don't know what that means. >> it means that it's scary as heck. >> okay. >> riders plunge around toward the ground at 62 miles an hour and if you have a need for speed, the roller coaster covers more than two miles of track in 112 seconds. >> 100 -- >> you're going like this. you're -- if you're going up, you go -- >> wow. >> invert and go. it looks scary to me. it's 112 seconds. wait in line for five hours to get on for 112 seconds. >> a big thrill. this restaurant can get rid of its high chairs. outside of pittsburgh, new rule, no kids under 6. >> the owner of mcdane's restaurant and golf center did it in order to protect the more mature customers from the throngs of screaming, crying children. >> nothing wrong with babies, but the fact is, you can't control their volume. i think it's the height of being impolite and selfish. >> it was an ignorant decision.

you know, who says that at 6 you're magically mature enough to eat in a restaurant. >> the owner says that he thinks most of the customers will be on his side. still to come on "american morning," if you build a supermarket will the folks living in so-called food deserts come? new information on whether supermarkets can improve a person's diet. >> thousands of celebrities, even 9/11 victims, reportedly targeted by phone hacking british tabloids leaving us wondering how hackers do it. brian todd reports it's a lot easier to hack into someone's voice mail than you think. >> a doctor in pakistan arrested for allegedly helping the cia set up a vaccination sting at osama bin laden's compound. where do you go to find a super business?

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welcome back to "american morning." in depth now, everyone's talking this morning about the phone hacking scandal that has rupert murdock's media empire stumbling a little bit. >> he's been forced to shut down britain's largest paper "news of the world." reporters there allegedly hacked into the voice mail of thousand of celebrities, government officials and even the royals.

leaving us wondering how easy is it to hack into someone's phone and voice mail. here's brian todd. >> reporter: for "news of the world" reporters to have allegedly hacked into the voice mails of murdered victim milly dowler, celebrities or terror victims experts say they wouldn't have to be experts. >> there are a lot of easy to use techniques and available tools to help hackers get access to your phone. >> reporter: in speaking with telecom and cyber security experts we picked up three basic techniques hackers can use to get into your voice mail. they can dial into your voice mail network keep trying default passwords like 1111. enter password and pound sign. >> log in incorrect. try again. >> reporter: many cell phone providers give users default passwords to retrieve voice mail and many bother never to change them or change them to birthdays. we spoke with a founder of a

cyber security company. >> a second method is to spoof your phone number to make someone's voice mail think it's their own phone, accessing the voice mail. to do that, you sometimes can go to a website that lets you get a spoof phone number. we are going to do that. >> reporter: we buy a spoof account on spoofcard.com a website for pranksters. allows us to call any number we want, make it seem like it's coming from any number we want and from another phone, we call a new cell phone, disguised as his own number. >> i'm going to ignore the phone call. >> ignore the call. okay. >> please leave a message and i'll return your call when i can. >> hit star. >> you have one unheard message. >> so we were able to hear your voice mails now, simple process, just dial a series of numbers. >> that's right. i have a pin set up on my voice mail account, but if i'm dialing my voice mail account from my phone, i get straight into it.

>> reporter: some carriers require you to give a password to access your voice mail, some don't. a third method, they can call your network operator and pretend to be you and say they lost your password and need to get access to your account, supplying information such as your social security number, date of birth and mother's maiden name. >> reporter: how do you protect yourself. expert says you can call your carrier and set a pass code for your account so even if a hacker knows a lot of personal information about you they don't know that pass code. you should keep changing the passwords on your accounts maybe as often as you change your toothbrush and limit the amount of personal information about yourself on facebook and other social media. that's a gold mine for hackers. brian todd, cnn, washington. this morning in london, wikileaks founder julian assange beginning a two-day appeal against extradition to swede

wherein he's wanted on sexual assault charges, allegations he denies. akita shubert is live from london outside of the high court. good morning, akita. >> good morning. basically this is an appeal his first attempt at fighting this extradition request was rejected and now he's appealing at the high court and has a new legal court arguing what happened in sweden, what may be criminal in sweden is not criminal here in britain. this right now is the crux of their argument and they're trying to convince the judge that this needs to be further analyzed before considering whether or not this arrest warrant by sweden should actually be validated and whether they should extradite julian assange. remember, he's facing four allegations in sweden, one of which is considered in swedish legal terms as minor rape, also two other allegations of sexual molestation is the term in

sweden, but more akin to harassment or misconduct. but all in all, it's important to remember, assange has not been charged yet. these are merely allegations and he's wanted for questioning. >> and he's fighting the extradition. atika shubert, thanks so much. coming up next on "american morning," how marines stationed in afghanistan scored a date with actress mila cue nis. you're watching "american morning." we'll be back in a moment. hey, dad, you think i could drive? i'll tell you what -- when we stop to fill it up. ♪ ♪ [ son ] you realize, it's gotta run out sometime. [ male announcer ] jetta tdi clean diesel. the turbo that gets 42 miles per gallon. ♪ t the motorola expert from sprint. its powerful tools help you work faster and smarter so you can get back to playing "angry birds."

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48 minutes past the hour. a look at your headlines this morning. 23 states from michigan to georgia and as far west as texas are facing excessive heat warnings and advisories today. the heat index in many areas could reach as high as 115 degrees. the president and congressional leaders agreeing to meet again today to try to hammer out a debt deal. no progress yesterday. just 22 days remaining until the nation hits the debt ceiling and goes into default. treasury secretary timothy geithner is expected to hold a press conference in less than two hours. it's not clear what he's talking about, perhaps the lack of progress if the debt ceiling talks. a memorial service will be held this afternoon for former first lady betty ford. first lady michele obama, hillary and bill clinton are scheduled to attend. nasa says a piece of space junk should not threatened the planned spacewalk in about two hours. if the debris does come too

close "atlantis" thrusters can be used to move it out of harm's way. you're caught up on the day's headlines. "american morning" is back after a quick break.

50 minutes past the hour. welcome back to "american morning." you've heard of local brews but not like this. anheuser busch is reportedly trying to trademark the area code of 15 major u.s. cities and create local sounding brews. you may hear things like this in a bar soon. i'll have a pint of 202 for washington. or a bottle of 415 for san francisco. anheuser busch acquired goose island the makers of 312 urban wheat ale for chicago. 51 minutes after the hour. time for an a.m. house call. building supermarkets in underserved neighborhood or so-called food deserts is not enough to improve the diets of people living there. according to a new study which tracked people for 15 years, people didn't eat more fruits and vegetables when they had supermarkets available in their neighborhood. researchers found income in the location of fast food restaurants were the strongest factors. like it or not you'll soon know more about what you're

eating at your favorite restaurants. the fda will soon make it mandatory for restaurant and fast food chains with more than 20 locations to post calorie counts right on the menu. coming up next, elizabeth cohen breaks down whether this rule will change what we eat. >> i totally think it does. >> in new york we have it already. >> national chains that have a number of stores. >> i was down in i guess i was in delaware at a friendly's and they didn't have the calorie count on the burger i wanted. i thought, wow, i guess i'm missing this. i'm using to seeing it. >> i've made better choices because of it. when it's that obvious this is twice the calorie count of this. >> right. more news about your health. dieting and parenting, don't listen to me, go to cnn.com/health. >> scared me there for a second. so much for being the lucky fan. how the irs might come after the guy who caught derek jeter's 3,000th hit even though he gave the ball back. the yankees shourd him with

gifts including seats for the rest of of the year. we asked you, do you think yankee fan christian lopez would have been better off not catching jeter's home run. >> d 3 mango on twitter -- >> nice. on twitter we've got this one -- >> and cameron on facebook -- but again, it's not the yankees. >> it's not the yankees. angry people this morning. guys, hit snooze, sleep an extra hour and come back in an hour and talk to us on twitter this one -- nobody is threatening

anything by the way. "the new york times" inquired about this. now, one says he should have sold it on ebay, i wonder if he would have been subjected to taxes on that. >> but he would have money. right now he has no in money and these -- >> student loans. >> tickets. he doesn't have any income. if he sold it and got $100,000 for it. >> he would pay 14,000. >> keep your comments coming. send us an e-mail, tweet. >> tell us on -- into facebook. >> or read more of your thoughts later in the hour. a marine stationed in afghanistan snags a date with actress mila kunis. sergeant scott moore posted a video on youtube and asked the friends of benefit star to go to a marine corps dance with him in november. check it out. sn>> >>. >> hey, mila, sergeant moore, you can call me scott. want to take a moment out of my day to invite you to the marines corps ball in greenville, north carolina, with yours truly. take a second, think about it,

get back to me all right. bye now. >> mila was promoting her movie with justin timberlake and agreed to go after timberlake urged her to accept quote for her country. >> see if she follows through. that's one excited marine. >> good for him. >> up next in the next hour, having trouble understanding the debt talks in d.c. all you have to know is hundreds of thousands of paychecks could be on the line. a former treasury official about what it means for the average american. ♪

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personal pricing now on brakes. tell us what you want to pay. we do our best to make that work. deal! my money. my choice. my meineke. rupert murdock's media empire coming under fire. published reports say his newspapers illegally accessed the bank accounts of former prime minister gordon brown and the medical records of his ill son. now brown is firing back. on this "american morning." and good morning to you. it's tuesday, july 12th. glad you're with us on this "american morning." i'm kiran chetry along with ali velshi. christine romans is taking some time off. >> up first widening tabloid scandal that has rupert murdock's media em firing struggling. according to publish reports his

newspapers illegal accessed the bank accounts of prime minister gordon brown and the medical records of his ill son. after a phone hacking scandal forced murdoch to shut down "news of the world" on sunday this developments have disrupted his plans to take over british sky broadcasting with news corporation's market value taking a 10 figure hit. let's go live to dan rivers in london with the latest. dan, the story developing on many fronts, on the financial front, the political front and criminal front. >> yeah, that's right. i mean, the latest here is that gordon brown has now been sort of dragged into this scandal with suggestions that his bank records were hacked by one other murdoch newspaper "the sunday times" that his son's medical records were accessed by a different murdoch paper "the sun" newspaper. there are several sides to this story. he's come out and done an interview this morning talking

about how he was in tears when he found out that his son's medical records have been accessed. "the sun" is saying they got those records legitimately without breaking the law and some of this critics, gordon brown's critics, are saying look, he's still attended the wedding of rebekah brooks, the then editor of the sun even after the allegations were published. was he that upset if he was willing to accept that wedding invitation. a lot of different facets to this story. the financial aspects with the share price of news international taking a hammering and this morning some of the policemen who have been involved with this inquiry past and present are being questioned by politicians as well. so we're watching that one closely. >> all right. dan, we're going to be following this. new developments really every few hours it seems of this. we'll check in with you again. dan riskers in london. new this morning afghan president hamid karzai's half brother found shot to death at his home in kandahar.

ahmed wali karzai was the provencal council chief and suffered gunshot wounds to his head and chest according to hospital officials. a spokesman for kandahar's government claims a guard is responsible for the shooting. the taliban claims the guard was working for them. the u.s. has long suspected ahmed wali karzai was involved in narcotics trafficking. the divide between the u.s. and pakistan growing even wider this morning. now that pakistan has arrested a local doctor accusing him of helping the cia set up a fake vaccination sting to track down osama bin laden. reza sayah live from islamabad this morning. how did the sting work and how did the doctor's arrest impact the already damaged relationship between the u.s. and pakistan? >> yeah. this thing straight out of a spy novel, kiran. a pakistani intelligence source tells us that this pakistani doctor is in custody. it's not clear if he's going to be charged with anything. we know he's suspected of being linked with a very intricate cia plot to confirm that, indeed,

bin laden was hiding out in abbottbad. the source tells us this doctor had staged a fake vaccination campaign offering free vaccinations and polio drops to people and children in abbottbad. according to the british paper "the guardian" he hired two nurses who were going around house to house offering shots and the plan was to use the vaccine, the syringe, from the bin laden kids or extract blood from them and match that dna with the dna from blood from bin laden's sister who passed away in boston, massachusetts, last year. we did talk to a number of residents in abbottbad today. indeed they say in late april these two nurses were going around house to house, we talked to one resident who said she accepted some of the vaccinations. it's not clear, we haven't verified if they made it into the bin laden compound. one official has told "the guardian" the plan was in place but didn't succeed in getting the appropriate dna samples.

very intricate plot and really shows you to what length the cia was going to confirm the presence of bin laden in abbottbad, pakistan. >> it is fascinating. wow. reza sayah in islamabad, thanks so much. the heat is on full blast. warnings and advisories are in effect in 23 states where the heat index is expected to top 105 degrees. this extreme heat is being blamed for at least one death in madison county, illinois. in oklahoma, it cost a highway pavement to buckle. look at this. a motorcyclist was injured after his bike went over the damaged portion of road. in arkansas several communities have opened cooling centers to beat the heat which is on everybody's mind. >> judging by the way i'm sweating, 8 out of a scale of 10. it's pretty hot. >> might get 10 by tomorrow. >> probably stay inside. >> we stay in the air conditioning as much as we can. our trucks are air conditioned, thank god. >> your brain cannot function at

temperature extremes. if you get too hot you can have problems and long-term damage. >> right now nearly 400,000 people in the chicago area are without power following the worst storm in a decade. utility officials say it could be several days before many of the customers are back on-line. here's what the storm looked like as it blew through rockford, illinois. driving rains and powerful winds brought down tree limbs and littered the road with debris. cnns a rob marciano is tracking is the weather. they need a little rain. we could use a little rain to cool things down. >> that's the problem. you want that cooling shower in the afternoon. with the energy in the atmosphere and heat buildup you can get blowups. there's the bow echo, here we go again, cruising right through. pretty much wreaked peak intensity and then blows to the south and east. winds gusting 70, 80 miles an hour. enough to take down trees and

power lines. com ed saying it could be several days for those spots to get back on-line. this is it on the list. mostly in arkansas up and over 100 degrees. it's so steamy, humidity in the air, that's been the main factor with this heat wave, at least the past couple days and that's why we have heat warnings and advisories that are up for a good 23, 24 states. the pink areas, that's where the dangerous heat is. oklahoma city through kansas, memphis through nashville, now stretching some of those heat advisories up into the northeast. including d.c., baltimore, philadelphia and new york city as well. here's what we think for heat indices today and tomorrow. up and over 100 degrees. we may see a little bit of a break come thursday and friday and we'll see this pattern break down just a little bit. you don't get cold fronts that go down to the south this time of year but if we can break it up a little bit, get rid of the high keeping everything hot, hazy and humid, we'll do a good job, better job of that i should say later in the week. the next couple days is going to be dangerously hot. do what you can to stay cool.

>> inside, keep hydrated. thank you. tensions between the syrian regime and the u.s. reaching a new high this morning. mobs attacking the u.s. embassy in damascus. yesterday crowds surrounded the building breaking windows, using spray paint. no one was hurt but the violence comes as secretary of state hillary clinton unleashed her strongest criticism yet of that country's president, bashar al assad. >> president assad is not indispensable and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power. our goal is to see that the will of the syrian people for a democratic transformation occurs. >> clinton went on to say that assad has lost his legitimacy and is trying to deflect attention from his crackdown on peaceful protesters. the obama administration is moving forward with a plan that would require dealers -- gun dealers in four border states to do extra work. under the policy, dealers in

california, arizona, new mexico and texas have to report the sale of high-powered rifles under certain conditions. this is part of an effort to stem the flow of guns to mexican drug cartels. the national rifle association says it's going to sue to stop the new requirements. a crowd of protesters get rowdy and shut down a san francisco subway station. it happened last night. the group calling itself no justice, no bart, that's bay area rapid transit, they are upset after transit police shot and killed a drunk man waving a knife at that same station last week. so far no officers have been charged in that shooting. the massive cheating scandal involving several public schools in atlanta has cost four superintendents and a principal their jobs. the firings come less than a week after dozen of educators were accused of changing grades and falsifying standardized test scores. a new suburban dallas superintendent has been put on paid leave because she used to be a deputy superintendent in the atlanta school system.

the crew of the space shuttle "atlantis" woke up to the sounds of matthew west and his new single "more." ♪ shine you are mine and you shine for me too ♪ ♪ i love you >> the crew has a busy day ahead of them. today will be the last spacewalk conducted with a visiting shuttle crew present. nasa also extending the shuttle mission for an extra day. "atlantis" and its crew are scheduled to return next thursday, 5:56 a.m., eastern time. >> 5:56 a.m. we'll just be able to watch it. very nice. coming up on "american morning," president obama says it's time to get serious about cutting a deal to raise the nation's debt limit. republicans will not budge on taxes and some democrats are refusing to have anything to do with a deal that includes medicare changes. we're going to speak to an expert who, by the way, has worked in the treasury and says hundreds of thousands of jobs may be on the line if washington keeps stalling. the fbi is trying to figure out how a stun gun disguised as a cell phone got past tsa.

>> it looks like a cell phone. >> yep. and made it on board a flight to newark liberty airport. should they have caught it? >> can you imagine putting your hand in that seat back cushion and coming out with a stun gun? >> no. the obama administration clearing the way for the government to get more information on gun purchases along our southern border. is the new plan illegal? we're going to have both sides of the debate on the show coming up. [ male announcer ] there's more than one

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president obama and congressional leaders came up empty again in the talks to raise the nation's debt limit. the president and hill leaders have agreed to meet again today with just 22 days until the

nation can't cover all of its bills and no one knows for sure what could happen to the global economy if that happens. don't listen to anybody that tells you they do know for sure because they don't. joining us live from washington is former treasury undersecretary in the bush administration, jay powell. jay, thank you for joining me. i appreciate that you're here. kind of need to talk to somebody like you because ultimately if we get to that august 2nd deadline and we have not increased the debt limit, somebody in the treasury department, maybe the treasury secretary, maybe one of the undersecretaries, is going to have to start making decisions as to who gets paid. >> that's right. if we don't raise the debt ceiling by august 2nd we're going to wake up on august 3 with not enough cash to pay our bills. we'll be cutting programs that are very popular and very important. >> let's go through some of this. let's talk about where we'll stand on august 3rd if this

doesn't happen. we'll need about $32 billion in some payments and when you break it down, we're going to have $12 billion in revenue, $32 billion in expenses, so there are things that could get cut, included in that could be defense, could be $1.8 billion to the department of education, $500 million in federal salaries and benefits, $2.2 billion in medicare and medica medicaid. $1.4 billion in food stamps and welfare payments. where do you start making those decisions? >> the real problem with august 3 is there is a large social security payment due in the amount of about $23 billion. these are our estimates using public data and we think they're close to right. you have $12 billion of inflows on the 3rd, some cash level from the 2nd but not enough to pay the bills and this giant social security payment. we don't have any certainty around what would happen but you have to say the big social

security payment is really at risk if the debt ceiling is not raised by august 2. >> we keep hearing people in washington on both sides saying clearly we wouldn't miss payments to social security or clearly we wouldn't miss payments to our military or clearly we wouldn't miss debt payments. who makes that decision? >> the administration makes that decision. that would be really a white house omb decision among all the economic leaders would get together. but that's not their role in our system of government. congress is supposed to make those decisions effectively what's happening here congress has ordered spending and hasn't provided the executive branch with the funds to carry out its legally binding orders. talk about august 15th, the next big day if we didn't raise the debt ceiling. on august 15th, we would have revenue of $22 billion, this is in a day, and expenses of 4 $1 billion there. -- $41 billion there. on august 3rd we have a $23 billion social security payment. on august 15th, a $29 billion interest payment. so more than the revenue we

bring in is due just in interest on that day. >> that's right. what that means is, that you have to steal some revenue from prior days because i think everyone should understand that we're always going to pay the interest on our treasury bonds. we just will. that will be the highest priority because it's unthinkable we would default on a bond the possible effects in the global markets would be -- >> let me stop you there. i agree with you 100%. when you say it's literally unthinkable to default on the payment of a bond, tell our viewers what might happen if we did that. >> if we defaulted on a bond we would be looking at potential catastrophic consequences in the global financial markets along the lines of what happened and worse in september of 2008. the entire financial system is built on the idea that the united states is a credit risk-free entity and there is no risk and all over the world, people hold our bonds at a certain valuation. if we shake that basic foundation of the system, and it's not going to happen,

because it would be so grave, then the consequences could be -- are unthinkable and you can't predict them. >> when you say unthinkable i think you say that well because we've done things like this in the past, not related to this, but constantly think of what happened when lehman brothers failed. a lot of smart people in the room who thought we had the ability to weather that and we didn't. another scenario that you actually gave us. if you look at what happens, if as you said we're going to make social security payments, pay the interest on treasure securities, if we decide we are paying the following things, interest on security treasury, securities, social security, medicare, medicaid, food, nutritional services, hud programs, veterans affairs, unemployment insurance, special education grants, tuition insurance, if we decide those are the important things we have to pay, i default here are the things that we won't pay. let me show you this list. military active duty pay, defense department vepdsers, department of justice which is

courts, and the fbi, department of education, those pell grants, and department of energy expenses. clearly these are not good tradeoffs. >> well, it's, again, unthinkable. that's one of the examples that we've worked with. that example is the one where we protect all of the social safety net payments. this is food for poor people, this is medicare, medicaid, social security and interest on the debt which have to pay and those sorts of things. you can see you have to pay military active duty pay, operate the justice department. the justice department, for example, is only $1.4 billion in august. i say only. it's a lot of money. but that's the fbi, that's the courts, that's the jails, the federal jails, that's the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms. you need that stuff. you can't eliminate that stuff. education, what you're looking at is a lot of money in august going out to the states for special education grants. it's august. the schools are opening all over the country. if you cut this amount of money, which is $6 billion, what's going to happen to the special ed students, what's going to

happen in the schools? you flip it around and say we can't make all the social safety net payments. you can move these chess pieces around any way you want. you're going lose. >> jay, last question. you talk to a lot of people about this on capitol hill, give us sort of a fact-based, nonpartisan approach. do they get it? do the people who have to vote on this get it? >> overwhelmingly they do. there are some who won't be able to vote for a debt ceiling increase because it's a hard vote and our job is to make their lives more difficult explaining what will happen if the debt ceiling is not raised. this has been received in the spirit in which it's offered which is just the facts. >> good conversation. very smart conversation. and i clarify, you've run a bunch of scenarios. that was one we gave. thanks for your help. jay powell, the former undersecretary of the treasury under president george h.w. bush and a visiting scholar at the bipartisan policy center. i thought that was a brilliant way to look at that. >> you're right. >> just the facts. we have to make choices. it's what families have to do with their budget at home.

>> exactly. good conversation. ahead on "american morning," a wizard studded premier, hundreds of harry potter fans line the red carpet in the new york, as the final harry potter filmmakers it debuts. >> our question of the day. do you think yankee fans christian lopez would have been better off not catching derek jeter's home run ball? he may be on the hook for $14,000 in taxes, even though he gave the ball back. send us an e-mail, tweet, or tell us on facebook. >> you're watching "american morning." 20 minutes past the hour. hey, the new guy is loaded with protein! really? 25 grams of protein. what do we have? all four of us, together? 24. he's low fat, too, and has 5 grams of sugars. i'll believe it when i--- [ both ] oooooh... what's shakin'? [ female announcer ] as you get older, protein is an important part of staying active and strong. new ensure high protein... fifty percent of your daily value of protein.

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23 minutes past the hour. minding your business this morning. uncertainty running high on wall street over the debt crisis. spreading now to italy. the third largest economy in europe. the dow sank more than 150 points yesterday and the nasdaq dropping more than 50. the s&p 500 also down 24 points. treasure secretary tim geithner is scheduled to make opening remarks at a women in finance event, it's in d.c. this morning. he'll be speaking in a little over an hour. the jobs report stalls in the

budget deficit talks and all topics investors will be watching in his comments that could move markets. some of america's biggest companies reporting second quarter earnings. jp morgan chase, citigroup, google all report later this week. analysts at thompson reuters forecasting earnings for s&p 500 companies increased 7.5% from the same quarter last year. news corp stock taking a big hit after stalls in its bid to buy satellite tv company british sky broadcasting. shares of news corp dropped sharply, more than 7.5%. support for the deal weakened after the news of the phone hacking scandal at some of news corps' publications began to wide joan 9% of adults in the u.s. do most of their web surfing on their smartphones according to a study by pew internet and american life project. many say users tend to be low-income people to access the internet at home in place of computers. don't forget for the latest

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look at that, washington, d.c., it is 83 degrees. >> probably is going to feel ten degrees hotter than that when you factor in the humidity. a rare honor for a true hero at the white house today. sergeant first class leeroy arthur pettry became the second living active duty service member to receive the medal of honor for his actions in iraq and afghanistan. >> the seasoned army ranger lost a hand when he tossed an enemy grenade away from the young soldiers he led. barbara starr live at the pentagon for the story. these guys are one more impressive than the next. he took this grenade and tossed it away and it cost him his hand. >> it did, indeed, ali and kiran. when the sergeant steps up to

the podium at the white house later this afternoon next to the president of the united states he truly will step into history. we hear the words conspicuous gal lantry, we hear the words above and beyond the call of duty but for sergeant first class leeroy pettry, to hear what happened to this young man, 2008 in eastern afghanistan, they were in the middle of a brutal fire fight in a daylight raid. the only place they could take cover in this compound was in a chicken coup. so he and some other soldiers took cover in there, under fire. he is wounded. then the insurgents throw a grenade right at him and his buddies. already wounded he picks up the grenade, with disregard for his own safety, of course, own life, he picks up that live grenade and throws it back at the insurgents. the grenade detonated in his hands, catastrophically amputating one of his hands. he has a prosthetic. he remains on duty with his

beloved 75th ranger regiment, stationed at ft. benning, georgia. today he will be at the white house. sergeant pettry has deployed to the war zone already eight times. the president will read the -- will make the remarks at the white house. the citation will be read. and if you wonder what conspicuous gal lantry is about in this day and age this is sergeant pettry. >> that's the word they use, conspicuous gal lantry. sometimes it seems less obvious even though there's always great heroism involved this is rema remarkable he would do such a thing. thank you for telling us that story. >> sure. >> thanks, barbara. our top stories, pakistani security forces have arrested a local doctor who reportedly helped the cia set up a fake vaccination sting during the hunt for osama bin laden. the idea of the sting was to collect dna samples from people who lived inside the terror leader's compound. it's not clear how the doctor's arrest will impact the already fractured relations between the two countries.

rupert murdock's news corporation media empire under fire this morning. according to published reports his newspapers reportedly illegally accessed former prime minister -- british prime minister gordon brown's bank accounts and the medical records of his seriously ill son. that is disrupting murdoch's plans to take over british sky broadcasting. news corporation's market value is taking a multimillion-dollar hit. dropping 10% just yesterday. 7% just yesterday. president obama saying it's time to get serious about raising the nation's debt ceiling. talks continue today after leaders came up empty again yesterday. the president is insisting he is not accepting any short-term fix. >> so, we might as well do it now. pull off the band-aid. eat our peas. >> right now, republicans are refusing to budge on taxes and some democrats are saying all entitlement benefits like medicare must be spared. nearly half of the country now feeling the heat this morning to a dangerous degree.

there are heat advisories posted in a whole bunch of states. 23 states from new england to oklahoma and from the deep south to the ohio valley. the heat index could reach 115 degrees today in some places. little doggy. >> rob marciano is in the extreme weather center. watch out for the dogs, watch out for small kids, for the elderly. a lot of people vulnerable to getting sick when talking about 115 degree heat indexes. >> not everybody has ac. you know, i hate to be morbid here, but the number one weather related killer year after year is heat. just look after your neighbors, certainly in they're elderly or frail or medically ill, because this will take a toll on you regardless. even, you know, there's going to be a strain on the electrical grid as well. so, you know, there may be local blackouts in spots. just be aware of that. 100 to 110 degrees. the heat index, what it feels like, in the shade, when you incorporate the humidity. that's really the thing with

this, the amount of humidity in the air. oklahoma city to kansas city, the dew points are approaching 80 degrees. that is stiflingly humid and now extending the advisories and heat warnings up towards the northeast as well. 104 in memphis and 104 in little rock, 107 in jackson, and 107 expected in montgomery. these are the temperatures, what it will feel like over the next couple days. we'll see a little bit of a break come thursday and friday. we will see some afternoon thunderstorms, so be aware of that. they probably won't be as intense as they were last night in chicago, where still there are hundreds of thousands of people without power. you want the cooling thunderstorms, but you don't want the severe weather. a bit of a catch 22 there. hopefully if you get a shower in your area, it will be a gentle one to cool you off. temperatures in new york city will easily get into the 90s today and with that humidity, certainly near a subway, it's going to feel a lot hotter than that. guys? >> rob, we'll check in with you later. hundreds of mourners gathered to pay respects to a firefighter who died in a freak accident at

the texas rangers game we showed you this. shannon stone was laid to rest yesterday. his casket placed on a fire truck in his hometown. stone fell 20 feet it his death when he was trying to catch a ball tossed into the stands by a player and his 6-year-old son witnessed the accident. on the same day that shannon stone was buried, a fan at last night's home run derby nearly fell out of the outfield stands. he was lunging for a home run ball that was hit by prince fielder. take a look at the spot shadow here as friends grabbed him by the feet and held him and pulled him back as he dangled over the railing. he wasn't exactly the picture of safety, though. here he is at the game, dangling from the stands again. at one point he was even up on a table bare foot with nothing in front of him to break his fall. >> look at that. >> that's ridiculous. the fbi trying to determine how a stun gun disguised as a cell phone made it on to a jet blue flight from boston to newark. all the passengers were off the

plane friday when cleaning crews found the weapon in a seat back pocket. federal agents are not commenting on reports they've identified the passenger sitting in the seat where the stun gun was found. the obama administration is moving forward with a new plan to stop the flow of guns to mexican drug cartels. under the new policy, four border states, california, arizona, new mexico and texas, will be required to report the sales of high-powered rifles. the national rifle association is saying it plans to sue and that this plan is illegal. joining me now to discuss both sides of the issue, dennis henigan, active president of the brady campaign and chris w. cox chief lobbyist of the national rifle association of america. thanks for being with us. >> thanks for having us. >> dennis, let me start with you. explain how this new measure would help crack down on that problem of these guns making their way into the hands of mexican drug cartels. >> what we're seeing is a torrent of guns being trafficked

from american gun shops into mexico and feeding the awful cartel violence in that country. these cartels are exploiting the weaknesses in american gun laws, to feed their -- that violence. and what we see is that straw buyers for the cartels are going into these gun shops and they're buying five assault rifles at a time, ten assault rifles at a time, and all this rule will do is require the gun shops to tell federal law enforcement when these highly suspicious transactions occur. so that they can figure out what are the patterns of trafficking, arrest the traffickers before those guns ever get to mexico. >> i just want to ask a question about that. as you said, this exposes some of the weakness in the gun laws. there already is a law saying that this -- these so-called straw purchases or this trafficking is illegal. so why are we adding another law on top of it? >> because it's very, very difficult to detect a straw purchase.

and what you need is real-time notice when one of these multiple sales occurs. for over 40 years, we have had a similar requirement applied to the sale of handguns. it has been a very effective anti-trafficking measure because these are highly suspicious sales. they give real-time notice to law enforcement about who is buying all these guns and which dealers tend to sell a lot of guns because sometimes the dealer and the trafficker are basically conspiring to feed guns into the illegal market. this is a pro-law enforcement measure. it's a very modest measure. and it is amazing to me that the national rifle association is going to go to court because it wants these transactions to remain a secret. it wants these transactions to be the secret between the straw buyer and the dealer. we think law enforcement ought to know about them and act on that information. >> why, chris, are you guys planning to sue when this happens?

>> thanks, kiran. first of all it's a bad idea because congress, it won't work. it's an illegal idea because they don't have the authority to do it. when the president wants a health care bill he goes to congress. when he wants to raise the debt ceiling he goes to congress. when he wants to pass gun control and knows congress won't pass it, he does this enron around congress. you brought up an important point that dennis continues to ignore. it is illegal for a straw purchase in this country. ten years mandatory jail time in federal prison, but according to syracuse university, and their track studies, this administration has the worst record ever on prosecuting those gun crimes. it's embarrassing that they want to ask for another one when they won't enforce the laws they already have. the truth is the drug cartels aren't going to be concerned with a paperwork violation by atf. the first thing we need to do, atf does know a lot about straw purchases because they approved thousands of them and sent thousands of illegal guns into mexico. we now have a dead federal agent. this is nothing more than a

distraction away from a growing scandal in a program that's not going to do anything. >> you're making points here and i just want -- the goal is to give a clearer argument for people at home to understand what's going on. you're referring to fast and furious, an atf operation, where the goal was to trace those guns and to actually bring down the smuggling network and yes, there were -- obviously did not go as planned. we know that. back to this one, you agree that it's a problem that these straw purchases are getting in the hands of are drug cartels in mexico especially because the two most popular guns are the ak-47 and the bushmaster 223, able to fire off 30 plus rounds without having to be reloaded. this -- these are the guns that they want down there. these are the guns that the cartels want. why would you fight -- they're not trying to limit the right of people to bear arms here in the united states. they're not -- this isn't really a threat to the second 2nd amendment. why would you oppose these getting in the hands of drug dealers in mexico? >> the national rifle association's position is that if you break the law, why you

ought to be -- you ought to be arrested, prosecuted and thrown in jail. the majority of the guns in mexico are fully automatic, getting hand grenades, building submarines to smuggle drugs into this country and to suggest a reporting requirement to an agency that's been incompetent with regards to the same reporting is able to police this situation, is just a sad reality that it's not going to work. we need to get serious. we need to tell the president to go to the u.s. attorneys and prosecute people who are buying guns illegally. if you're not, leave the law abiding gun owners out of the equation. focus your job on law enforcement which means enforcing lawsuit and nothing more. >> let me let dennis weigh in quickly about some of these questions. why not go through congress and also do we have a more of an enforcement problem as opposed to a problem with the laws? >> well, atf already has the authority to take these kinds of modest steps. it doesn't have to go through congress. there's a lot that should be done by congress, but we can do this now. and this is a law enforcement

issue. yes, we want to be able to prosecute the straw buyers. this is a way to identify those people who are very likely to be straw buyers because they're going into gun shops and they're buying five assault rifles at a time and then three more and then ten more. those are the people you want to go after. and so this is a pro-law enforcement measure. it is precisely the law enforcement officials and the prosecutors who are supporting this measure. and it's the nra that's opposing it, the nra wants to keep these transactions a secret. it doesn't want law enforcement to know who the likely straw buyers are. it doesn't want law enforcement to have the capacity to intercept these guns before they ever get to the mexican border. >> dennis, that's just exactly wrong and you know it. the truth is, law enforcement during the course of a criminal investigation can have any and all records they want. so to go on national tv and to

suggest that the nra opposing law enforcement, just shows the ignorance on this issue. the truth is we support law enforcement. law enforcement supports the second amendment. we need to get serious about the situation in mexico. we can talk about paperwork violations all day long. but until the government gets serious about enforcing the law, it's going to continue to be a problem. >> chris, you can denigrate this as paperwork violations but this is giving real time notice to law enforcement agents on the front lines against these traffickers. they need every tool they can get to fight this trafficking. >> i want to thank both of you for your point of view. >> the nra is opposing it. the nra wants the traffickers to keep these transactions a secret. doesn't want law enforcement to know about them. so that these guns can be intercepted and that mexican citizens and mexican families can be protected against this violence which is being committed largely with united states weapons. >> dennis and chris, i thank both of you for your time and your perspective this morning. we're going to take a quick

break. mine was earned over the south pacific in 1943.

vietnam, 1967. i got mine in iraq, 2003. u.s.a.a. auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation, because it offers a superior level of protection and because u.s.a.a.'s commitment to serve the military, veterans, and their families is without equal. begin your legacy. get an auto insurance quote. u.s.a.a. we know what it means to serve. doesn't want law enforcement to your perspective this morning.

they should have had magic wands instead of bats.

in honor of the final installment of the "harry potter" movies being released this friday the minor league fresno grizzlies wore "harry potter" school uniforms during their game on saturday saturday, auctioned off the game. the grizzlies won the game so whatever spell they put on -- >> whoever wrote that story is not a "harry potter" fan. they don't have magic wands. what are those things they use? >> somebody else got -- >> what is it? >> broomsticks. >> the special broomstick that harry potter has, it's something 3,000. forget it. nimbus 3,000. >> i don't know why she thinks i would know this. >> and the fire bolt. "harry potter" mania -- >> haven't been to a "harry potter" movie in my life. cnn's zain verjee following that for us live in london. nimbus 3,000. that's what they needed at this baseball game. >> everybody knows that. come on. >> exactly. >> dumbledor and hoeffelpuff and

lord vul der more. come on, ali. >> yeah. >> let me show you video of the screaming fans looking at the harry potter stars as they came in through the red carpet for the final installment of the movie "hallows part 2." they all wore the glasses there and this is actually the last time they're going to be seeing all the stars, altogether, for this premier. "harry potter" or daniel rat cliff was saying i don't think any of us thought this day would come but it is here and some of the things they were telling fans, it was quite refreshing during the last year. there they go. to actually play different roles and not what they've been playing for the last ten years. check out emma watson there. grabbing her dress. making sure it looks just fine there. she was actually wearing bortega vaneta. >> she looked amazing. to get away with that hair cut is amazing. >> right. >> you're right.

she was enoughi influfing her ds with authority. she knows what to do on the red carpet. >> she does. she was saying she wanted to push the fashion envelope in new york. in london she wore oscar de la renta. >> she's a fashionable muggle. zain -- >> good, ali. >> only word i know in harry potter. let's get your take on this "news of the world" scandal which is expanding, reaching new places, affecting other murdoch newspapers. what's your take? >> well, the focus today, ali, is really going to be on the police. the question is, what did the police know, did they try to cover up anything they knew of what was going on. they're being grilled by members of parliament today and what they want to know is why did they not dig deeper into an investigation into the hackings? there are only like 4,000 cases. the question is, what went wrong there? there was also the assistant commissioner who was told to reopen the investigation baaing in 2009, and he didn't do it and

they want to know why. let me just show you how it is spreading. gordon brown, really angry, saying that rupert murdock has links to criminals today. really upset that he was hacked and there was information about his child having cystic fibrosis and also the queen being hacked, too, allegedly and numbers of the members of the royal family. this could get worse. we're keeping an eye on it. >> it's costing the company money too. the stock value has take an hit. >> plummeting. >> thanks very much for that. zain verjee in london. >> calories on a menu make a difference. better food choices if you know what you're eating has too many calories. >> totally. look at me, i come back to new york and dropping the pounds because of calories on the menu. i make that up. that's not really true. >> see if it works for everyone else. elizabeth cohen joins us. >> you have to stay and watch to find out the real answer. hey, the new guy is loaded with protein!

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restaurants to hide as many calories, fat, salt content are in some of your favorite meals. the fda is about to make it mandatory fast food and other restaurant chains including these calorie could you please tell us on their menu. the question is will it change what you decide to eat? >> did for me. senior medical correspondent liz death cohen joins us from atlanta who always makes good choices in eat pregnant. i'm not intuitive about some foods that are high calorie. >> i think you're putting that nicely, i'm not intuitive. that was good. right. it's hard to know what is going to have a lot of calories and what is not. for example, let's take a look at this salad here. you take a look at a salad and you think, okay, how bad could this be? >> healthy. >> okay, salad. really, it's 1,347 calories. >> wow! >> that is a lot. put that in perspective. you're supposed to be about

2,200 calories a day and you're having over 1,300 calories in one meal. you're right sometimes we don't know what is in a meal. >> some states are doing this. we have it in new york. in new york city you can see the calorie counts. >> why are you stopping her? she has a blooming onion there! >> you have to be crazy to not know know, a, how deliciousen and, b, how high in calories it is. >> i don't know who can eat this on their own. >> i could polish off one of those to fast. >> that is intuitive for me. kiran is like a championship eater. >> to look at her, you would never know. >> right. >> i can't believe that. but that is 1,551 calories right there in a blooming onion. >> the worse part that is usually the appetizer before you get the big platter! because i know where that's from. >> we know these labeling rules exist in new york city. where else are they coming and

what kind of restaurants are going to have to follow them? >> right. various other counties and municipalities said let's put the labels on there. the whole country by the end of the year or next year, everybody has to have the labels for big restaurant chains like outback steakhouse or cheesecake factory. if you have more than 20 restaurants in the united states you're suppose to do put the calories on the menu. some studies show people are like ali. they see it and change their choices. i know i've seen this and said, my goodness, i had no idea! other studies show people don't care. i think it depends on the person. >> i have two tricks. you have that huge salad. they are putting 1,300 calories on that and if you dump all of the dressing on it and you can only use half the amount of dressing and maybe get the salad slit and get the other half to go before you start eating and you can pull off the avocado and the cheese. >> right.

look at the ingredients. that is important. if it comes with cheese, you say please give me half as much cheese that usually goes on there. if it comes with nuts, you can ask for less of that. my favorite thing is ask for half of it to go from the beginning. just say, serve me half, put half in a doggie bag and bring it home, that's my lunch tomorrow. >> that is likely going to happen for me. can i get half a salad? like a cheeseburger there and kfc? >> yes. >> i don't know why i'm in new york for this conversation! >> believe me, wouldn't want to eat this. it's been sitting around a couple of hours. >> would not stop us. >> how many calories. >> nearly 1,300 for an angus cheese burgen and large fries. we got these for kiran because we heard these are her favorite. that together is 1,300 calories and then kfc. this is the diet dish on the table here only 850 calories for a large popcorn chicken and potato wedges. put that in perspective.

2,200 calories for the day and you're spending 850 on this meal. >> you're right. or you're on the treadmill for two and a half hours. is it worth it? >> taking one third of my calories in kfc, i could have two more! >> that is his reasoning. i don't know what we are working with me. >> i'm confused. what did you just say? >> thank you. >> top stories coming up after the break. >> right? i can do three of those. we're still on tv. we are going to take a break now. [ male announcer ] if you're looking for a pickup truck, check out the miles per gallon.

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shocking new developments in the british tabloid hacking scandal. i'm kiran chetry. rupert murdoch's newspaper is now accused of illegally accessing the bank accounts of the former prime minister and the medical records of his ill son. gordon brown firing back this morning. i'm ali velshi. the cia reportedly used an vaccination sting to hunt down osama bin laden. now a pakistani doctor arrested for helping carrying out the plane and leaving the relationship between the two countries even more fractured on this "american morning."

>> good morning. thanks for being with us on this tuesday. july 1th. christine is off today but ali is here. >> i am. >> keeping cool in your three-piece suit. it is going to be triple digits in much of the country today. >> it's heating up inside rupert murdoch's media enterprise as well. according to reports illegally accessed the bank account of gordon brown and the medical records of his seriously ill son. >> goredin' brown is attacking back today. we understand that local politicians there are questioning police as well about that initial investigation into the hacking. what is going on? >> reporter: yeah. they are questioning the policeman that led the initial inquiry into all of this many years ago. what the policeman peter clark is saying that the initial tip-off was that prince william's phone was being hacked into and they went to investigate that narrow

parameter of investigation who is hacking into the phone and that resulted in a news world reporter and private investigation being jailed. the key brouk down they didn't look at the wider picture of the 11,000 pages of evidence they gathered it wasn't just the royal family, it was pretty much everyone in the british establishment here including now, as we know, the former prime minister gordon brown, even the queen being targeted and pligoliticians, sports star actors. gordon brown hit out today suggestions that his personal details were accessed not through his telephone but people ringing up pretending to be him at his bank and trying to gain access to property deals he was doing by calling up his lawyers. even getting access to his son's medical records to get a story. now "news international" saying they got those medical records without breaking the law but gordon brown is furious.

here is what he said. >> i think what happened pretty early on in the government is that the "sunday times" appeared to have gotten access to my building society account. they got access to my legal files. some question mark about what happened to other files, documentation, tax and everything else. but i'm shocked. i'm genuinely shocked to find that this happened because of the links with criminals. >> reporter: i mean, his critics are saying, look. hang on a minute. after that story about his son was published, the editor at the time was rebecca brooks. he attended her wedding. was he upset about it? yes he was, he said in an interview this morning. the scandal is getting bigger and bigger each day. it's getting bigger because it's not just "the news of the world" involved but "the sun" and "the

sunday times" all owned by rupert murdoch. >> we will continue to follow it, dan. thanks so much. >> this is really continuing to unfold. another story now we have been following. brother of afghan president hamid karzai, his half-brother is found shot to death in his home. >> this is ahmed wali karzai. he suffered gunshot wounds to his head and chest according hospital officials. the taliban says the guard claimed for his shooting worked for them. wali karzai a long time allegedly involved in drug trafficking. it's intended to counter the influence of iran in the middle east. pakistani officials arrested a local doctor set up a fake vaccination sting in an effort to track down osama bin laden. >> reza is with us live from

afghanistan. tell us how the sting works and what it does to already deteriorating pakistani relations. >> reporter: already, ali, the u.s./pakistani relations in the tank and struggling and the arrest of the pakistani doctor doesn't help and shows that pakistan is very unhappy with the u.s. raid of the bin laden in may. it's high stakes and international spying at its best. this doctor, this pakistani doctor, according to an intelligence source here, is linked to a cia plot to confirm the whereabouts of osama bin laden. the source says he stage a fake vaccination campaign to offer free shots to individuals where this compound was. according to "the guardian" he had hired two nurses going house-to-house and the plan was to extract some blood from the bin laden kids in the compound

and match that blood with the dna samples of bin laden's sister who had passed away in boston, massachusetts, last year. we haven't been able to confirm whether the nurses got into bin laden compound. but in late april, we found two nurses were going house-to-house administering these vaccinations. fascinating details and drives home, guys, the efforts it took by the cia to find and located bin laden in may. >> reza in islamabad, thank you. julian assange is especiallying his extradition. he remains in the uk under house arrest. the swedilawyers fear is he

extradited to sweden he could be extra dated to the united states on those charges. dominique strauss-kahn's case has been posted ponted. he faces sexual assault charges for allegedly attacking a hotel maid. the case against him looking weaker. >> the case against dsk is prompting a new york city councilman to outlaw the perk walk what you're looking at here where the perpetrator is walked in front of media. they parade the suspect past the media. even mother teresa would look guilty in shackles was said. >> ray kelly, the new york city police commissioner, we don't parade anybody. no back door and this is where we -- they could put up, i guess, barriers for high profile

people. >> people need to know in some cases the perp walk is a deliberate thing. in new york the media is given a lot of access, more than they are in many other cities. it's culture here that media gets access unless there is a danger to the public by giving the media that access. >> you saw the guy who is charged, whitey bulger, he had been on the run, wanted in about 19 alleged mob killings. they got him in an helicopter, shot him from the air. >> these days, hard to avoid. it took one week. "the new york times" says st. martin's press is going to publish a book by the casey anthony trial claiming to answer the question is caylee anthony dead. the jury acquitted anthony of her daughter's murder last week. she is scheduled to walk out of prison on sunday. it's getting hotter out there. dangerous heat wave has engulfed half the country. 23 states.

look at that. half the country. 23 states under heat advisories. the blistering heat and humidity is being blamed for one death in illinois. >> rob marciano is in the extreme weather center and tracking this all for us. wow. triple digits. when you talk about the heat index being up to 115, that is unbelievable. >> yeah. so much humidity in the air. we haven't had a slew of record highs to tell you the truth. just a handful. so the humidity is really what is causing the misery here and that is what will suck the life out of you and in some cases quite literally. this is measured in the shade. if you're outside in the sun you can take the temperatures and add another 10 to 15 degrees. these are the painted with the heat advisories and watches. stretch to the northeast and any one of these spots could see temperatures that feel like up and over a hundred degrees. over the midsection of the country, we are looking for this to break down a little bit as we get towards thursday, friday and saturday and that will bring a

little bit of relief but the next two days look to be rather steamy. as far as what we're looking at going forward, 109 degrees we expect today for a heat index in little rock and similar numbers as we go through tomorrow. notice these temperatures begin to break down a little bit as we go through thursday and into friday. but until then, all bets are off and do what you can to stay cool. guys, i walked by elizabeth's little demonstration there. there were recommend napts left over. i thought you don't want to eat that stuff today and i don't think she got that stuff this morning! >> she might not have gotten it this week! eat at your own risk. >> rob knows me well enough if i were in atlanta there would be remnants of that. >> it would be gone. >> kfc, you can eat later. it definitely has improved. >> mcdonald's fries will last the better part of a decade. you don't throw those things out. >> exactly. >> my kids find them in the back of the minivan? forget it! they are eating them again.

so bad! thanks, rob. he didn't ask for a dime but the irs may still come after the guy who caught derek jeter's 3,000th hit. a home run in the left field bleachers and it happened saturday. "the new york times" talk to tax lawyers who say the 23-year-old fan who claims he owes a hundred,000 in student loans may actually owe taxes on the gift from the yankees. that was he was moved to a $1,5 hundred seat on saturday and they gave him luxury box tickets the rest of the year. >> what do you think? do you think christian lopez would be better off not catching derek jeter's home run? we will read some of your comments later on in the show. debt talks heat up but no deal in sight. is this a political game? james carville will be talking to us next. a businessman from chicago the first united passenger to fly 10 million miles! the stories he can tell! we want to know what 10 million

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♪ 15 minutes past the hour. a live look at the nation's capital. some clouds. 86. later, sunny and 101 degrees in washington, d.c. today. feeling the heat outside and feeling the heat inside. president obama's challenging republicans on raising the nation's debt ceiling. the talks continue today. the president is insisting he is not accepting any short-term fix. >> so we might as well do it now. pull off the band-aid. eat our peas. >> joining us now is former white house communications director under president bush, nicole wallace. good to see you. in new orleans, cnn political contributor james carville. always good to see you as well.

thanks for being with us. >> thank you. thank you. >> nicole, where will they find common ground? democrats saying no changes to type of entitles for less services for medicare and republicans saying no way we are going to say yes to any tax increase. >> you know, i think we have entered a point where there's a failure to communicate. republicans, a few days ago, actually as recently as last weekend, were open to a big dramatic fix. the big deal, i think, is what obama and boehner call it and someone who writes fictional novels about presidents that do bold things, that captured my attention. i think the reality collided with that fantasy of doing something big in that republicans are not going to accept tax increases at a time of such economic distress. you talk about eating your peas. president obama had plenty of

opportunity to eat his own peas by submitting budgets that were smaller and didn't contribute so mightily to the federal debt that we now find ourselves maxed out at. >> i want to ask you about. james, i'll let you weigh in one second. the federal government grew the most under the bush administration. >> sure, sure. after 9/11, we did spend a lot of money protecting the hole homeland. we entered wars in iraq and afghanistan. but i think after 9/11, there was an understanding in congress the debt ceiling was raised during those years. >> right. >> now, the public is -- you know, really the place where the far right of the republican party, the tea party caucus, if you will, the traditional republican establishment and the vast majority of independent voters, the place where there is the most consensus among those groups is around the size and the cost of the federal government. so certainly drawing a line in the sand against increasing this country's debt and against raising taxes is not an extreme position. it actually represents the

desires of the mainstream of america. >> james, the president painted out to be the pragmatic centrist here. he said i'm willing to make the liberals angry too. but we have to get something done. he's in a tough position right now. how does he sort of find a way to reconcile this with this countdown ticking? >> well, i think he is in a tough position and i think a lot of republicans want to shut the government down. the majority of american people want a government shutdown and a big majority of the republican congress. if you listen to jim demint or you listen to rush limbaugh or a lot of titans in the republican party, they say it doesn't matter if you shut the government down. my own feeling we probably will get one just like in talk, they voted it down the first day. this country decided that it could pay for three wars and three tax cuts. well, that didn't work. and we're dealing with the consequences of that. but my guess is, i hope i'm wrong, put it this way -- i hope

the experts are wrong because they say a shutdown would be a disastrous thing but i think they are going to go ahead and shut it down. i really do. >> i think this is interesting. do you think the republicans are playing chicken with the debt ceiling that they do want the government to shut down? >> i can't tell. i really don't know. i think if you look at the comments of the republican presidential contenders, i would agree with what james is saying, but if you look at the kind of careful comments of the republican legislators, at least until this point, they seem to indicate that a deal will get done. >> this is what david brooks wrote in "the new york times" about republicans. they said they missed a golden opportunity and if a normal party take advantage of the amazing moments being offered the deal of the century trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred billion dollars of revenue i creases. this is, i say, the mother of all no-brainers. >> david brooks makes a good point and he is a very well-respected voice on the right and center right. i think that is a legitimate way to look at this. i think another way to look at

it is that republicans believe that it is a principle worth drawing a line in the sand and organizing around. not to raise taxes on anybody at a time of great economic stress. >> not even loopholes? >> closing loopholes was something republicans were for when the idea was to accompany those closed loopholes with the lowering of the corporate and individual tax rates. that's what senator mccain and senator coburn were very willing to do and to discuss. but think that, again, we had a failure to communicate with our friends in other party and it was closing the loopholes in isolation that would result -- >> david said the president was injecting a poison point by increasing revenue either closing loopholes or needing to raise taxes he is putting republicans in a position he can't say yes to that. do you agree? >> look. the president didn't want to

continue the bush tax cuts of the wealthy which were a disaster to the u.s. government and did very little to stimulate any growth. that's a historical fact. he was against that. he was forced into that position. he said let's close the loopholes and return to this. look. there has to be something to negotiate with. again, i go back to my central point is i don't think a majority of the republicans are really interested in negotiating or doing anything. i actually think they want to shut the thing down and i think they are being told by very influential people in the republican party, "wall street journal" for instance is promoting op-ed pieces saying it will help the country if you shut it down. i think the real truth of the matter is if they are not looking to extend the debt limit, they actually want to shut it down. i think -- you know what? they actually have public support for that position. the public wants to shut the government down too. now whether or not they understand the consequences of this, i don't know, but the fact of the matter is the public by substantial number doesn't want to extend the debt limit. that's a fact.

>> election not far away now. nicole and james, great to get your take from both of you. thank you for being with us this morning. >> thank you. up next, investors are spooked by worries that europe's debt crisis could spread, not just our debt crisis is worrying investors. we will check the morning futures for you on the other side of the break. how much about president clinton earn on the speaking circuit? you way want to sit down when i tell you. and a marine asking mila kunis on a date. what did she say? i'll tell you on the other side. 23 minutes after the hour. [ male announcer ] built like a volkswagen. the 2011 tiguan.

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25 minutes half the hour. "minding your business" this morning. u.s. stock futures trading lower this morning. a lot of uncertainty over the euro zone debt crisis spreading to italy the third largest economy in europe and some concerns about our own debt crisis in the united states. cisco systems slashing work force by 10,000 jobs to revive profit growth. according to the report by bloomberg, majority of those cuts could start by the ends of

summer. former president bill clinton's words are money. federal finance records show he has earned more than $75 million in the past ten years just from paid speaking events. 2010 was his strongest earnings year to date. unfortunate heard of local brews but not like this. anheuser-busch trying to trademark the area codes of 15 major u.s. cities to create local sounding brew. something like a pint of 202 for washington or bottle of 415 for san francisco. up next the first customer ever to fly 10 million miles with united airlines. "american morning" is back after the break. mine was earned over the south pacific in 1943.

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♪ come fly with me let's fly let's fly away ♪ this next guest actually -- this is fascinating. this motion of doing this. when he calls to reserve a flight, all he has to say is it's me. over the weekend a man named tom stuker the first to reach the 10

million mile mark on united. that is equal to around 20 trips around the moon. >> wow. they named a 747 in his honor and awarded him with the first ever titanium united mileage plus card. tom flew in to be with us this morning. that is normally a big undertaking but for you it's like brushing your teeth. over how many years have you collected these miles? >> i think it's 29 years. the first -- it took 19 years to do the first five. and i did 56 million the last ten years. i've been having aing over 500,000 a year. >> what do you do? >> i'm a consultant in the auto industry. i help dealerships or associations or manufacturers around the world in the retail side, helping them with the sales and the management processes at dealerships. >> so you're basically the real life george clooney character up in the air. did you see it? >> but nicer. >> maybe not as good-looking.

but that character is more pathetic. i mean, he has a real sad life. i feel for him. with those looks and that kind of money in that job, what is he doing living in omaha? no offense. >> but you love traveling. in fact, you're not tired of it. >> i love traveling! i hate being on the ground! i mean, i don't hate being on the ground but i look forward to getting in the sky. it's so quiet and peaceful, no phones and no cell phones. >> wow. >> i get more creative at 40,000 feet, you know? >> let me ask. your wife, does she fly with you all the time? >> she has flown 1.6. >> million? >> yeah. the exhas done 1.4. >> you crack me up! >> i travel a lot. you got to be the most traveled person you know? >> yeah, yeah. except for pilots and astronauts. >> let me ask you a couple of questions. have you ever wanted to get in the industry, fly your own plane? >> fly? are you kidding me?

you can't drink up there! i can't name the airline. >> let's say you're not supposed to drink. >> yeah, because want i don't want to say what do you want after takeoff? whatever the pilot is drinking! i'm sorry. >> how many times have you lost your luggage? >> no, no. i've flown -- i got a couple delayed bags, right? but 6,000 flights on united, they have never lost my bag once. >> that is amazing. have you ever been in a crash or a scare? >> i've been on near misses. i don't know what that means, how do you almost miss something. i've never been on a flight where the oxygen masks come down. i've been on turbulence. at first, i was scared to death of flying when i first started. i was scared of death of flying! but i got used to it at 6,000 flights. now i go through turbulence, i say put another quarter in. another disney ride. >> you've earned more miles the 10 million.

i can't imagine you pay a buck to travel anywhere. you were in malddeivz because it was disappearing. >> on a weekend, i'll go to hawaii over the weekend for two or three days because, hey, sunshine, paradise, it's worth the journey, you know? >> you can get that in miami too. >> but i don't go there. >> when you talk to -- you still have to go through security like everybody else? >> i'm more patient. you know? you got to go with the flow. american consumers just so demanding! they want to go to new york to l.a. for 199 dollars. they want triple miles and first class upgrades and free luggage if anything is scratched. you got to -- you got to be more patient. i tell people, you know, for coach people, there are some really good tips.

you know, you could fly good if you're in coach. first of all, know how many people are on the flight. know what the load is which means what percentage is full and how many empty seats you have. and then if you don't have an overhead bag, right? then be the last person on the flight! because that's when everybody shifts seats. you see a whole empty row. plop down in the middle and relax. you're in first class back there! so that, plus, you know, be prepared. i mean, all airlines have delays, cancellations, especially with the hub situation. with the hub situation, one flight cancels and it's a domino effect. so you might say the flight is delayed because of weather. the weather here is perfect. but maybe not in denver. so be prepared. every time you fly bring that extra pair of clothing, underwear, socks, whatever and a bathing suit if you're heading to warmer weather and if your luggage is delayed by a day, who cares? sit by the pool. you're on vacation, relax! >> you got these miles on

united. do you have great status on all of the airlines? >> i'm a million miler on american which is lifetime gold and upgrades and that is very nice. but, you know, united has been loyal to me for 29 years. so i'm loyal to them. it's like they are my family and why would i dish my family by going on another airline? >> have you noticed -- i know you don't want to rip on united but have you noticed a service change for the worse over the years? back when flying was considered a luxury and you dressed up and you got on the plane. now you're almost like cattle. >> you know what? to tell you the truth, i know a lot of people will disagree with me and think i'm kissing up to united or something like that. it's not just united. i fly on other airlines. i don't see service going down as much as passengers going down. the rudeness on a plane, whether it's the arm thing or i put my seat back and i have grown

adults act like children behind me kicking my seat or putting their paper in my hair or stuff like this. i'll put my seat back and some guy says, sir, can you put your seat up? i said, oh, no, urs goes down, too. no offense! i want that space! if you have to go to the bathroom i'll put my seat up so they don't have to do a contortion thing to go to the bathroom. >> tom, congratulations on the great travel. >> if you ever need an upgrade, i can wallpaper my house. >> tom stuker has a lot of friends. let's check out airport delays. i know the country is really hot but since we are talking about airlines, rob marciano is in the weather center for us. rob, this guy can travel. legallet him know if he has anything to do about. >> gives you an idea what to do when you're stuck in an airport. is that business lounge worth the extra money? thunderstorms in chart and st. louis and kansas city. a lot of these spots you'll take

those thunderstorms because it will cool you off but you don't want them so intense where it knocks out power to almost a million people which is what happened last night in chicago and yesterday afternoon. the video from the outskirts of chicagoland. winds gusting 70 to 80 miles an hour so certainly enough to take down power lines and trees and transformers. hopefully, we don't get that action today. here is what it looked like yesterday with the bow echo. bringing mid level winds down to the surface and pretty much plowing everything in its path. this is the focus point for thunderstorms today. the front, a cool front. not moving that far south so folks in the south will stay steamy. we are hoping the pattern that is created this heat and humidity breaks down just a little bit but until it does so, we have pink and oranges on the map for the southern plains. that means heat indiceses up to 115 and what it feels like in the shade. you go out in the sun, feels hotter than that. give the road crews a break if

you see them out there busting tail in the heat today. here you go. here is the high pressure over the mid south and this will break down a little bit as we get towards thursday and friday but until then the heat is on with heat indexes over triple digits. seemed like yesterday we were thinking about the long cold winter so remember that in your head as you sweat it out today! >> rob, thank you. check in with you later. you know what i wanted to ask him about all of that traveling? >> what? >> that what the guys have on them. they carry so little stuff. what is your favorite gadgetry but we had already talked to him ten minutes so we had to move on. there is other news today including a rare honor for a true hee owe. he is getting it at the white house today. leroy arthur petree is the second living active service duty member to receive the medal of honor for his actions in iraq and afghanistan. the seasoned army ranger lost a hand when he tossed a enemy grenade away from the young soldiers he was leading.

now he has a prosthetic hands and despite his injuries he recently reupped with the army for eight more years. wow! >> amazing hero. who knows how many lives he saved by that act of heroism. also marine stationed in afghanistan snags a date with actress mila kunis. he was posting a youtube video on the off chance she would say yes, sergeant scott moore. they said go to a marine corps dance with him. check it out. >> he has, mila, sergeant moore. you can call me scott. i want to take a moment out of my day for you to go to the marine corps ball with me in north carolina with yours truly. take a second. think about it. get back to me. all right. bye now. >> mila was promoting her new movie with justin timberlake and agreed to go after timberlake told her to go and represent her country. >> we will see if she follows

through. >> what do you mean? >> she said we'll see. up next, one single spacewalk left of the shuttle era. talk there live. what about the space junk? remember we were talking about that? any problems with that? we will check into it after the break. male announcer ] talking a big game about your engine is one thing. having the proven history that can back it up is a whole nother story. unsurpassed torque... best in class towing... legendary cummins engines. which engine do you want powering your truck? guts. glory. ram.

♪ this is exciting. we love when the magic wall can show information. we are talking today about the space shuttle mission. two members will take a walk and during the spacewalk, guess what they will be doing? >> fixing stuff and. >> yeah. >> international space station you keep hearing about that. that staying in space. a joint research facility involving the united states, russia, europe, japan, and canada and measures 357 feet which is three feet shy of the length of a football field. >> the first mission to the international space station was the shuttle "endeavour" and this was sts-88. pop it up here real quick and a

shot of the crew. this was back in december of 1998. that mission was dedicated to helping actually put the international space station together. >> pick it up in parts basically and been building it ever since. march 2001, "discovery," sts-102. this mission was the first to deliver a residential crew to the station. they went up there and lived there a while. this mission was responsible for bringing back the first group of people who actually stayed on the space station to conduct repairs and building. >> how fascinating when you think about living up in space. we are learning this morning about the final mission. that is shuttle "atlantis." the very last one. 135. it's scheduled for the return, they pushed it it back today. >> 12 days. >> they are doing it in 13 now. >> they are returning i believe a couple of minutes before 6:00 a.m. eastern time thursday morning! we will have it live! >> maybe a few minutes delayed

and it will be live and we will come on air and give it to you live! this morning's spacewalk is scheduled for 9:00, 10:00 this morning for us. guess who is covering this for us? john zarrella in his other home in miami. >> you know sts stands for space transportation system. we call it sts did you nobody knows what it means but it stands for space transportation system. that space walk you're talking about will get started a little bit late this morning. they are using a new technique that was developed where they don't have to prebreathe all night in the air-lock like they have had to in the past. what they do now is they do some exercising ahead of time. you'll see there that is them in the quest air-lock getting ready for this spacewalk. the two astronauts performing it are space station astronauts, not members of the shuttle crew but two americans part of expedition 28.

mike fossum and ron garon. what they are going to do, you mentioned an ammonium pump that failed almost a year ago to the day and they are taking that ammonia pump and they are going to, bottom of them, be in what is called foot restraints on the end of the canada arm taking turns doing that and they will take that failed ammonia pump and take it off where it's berthed right now and put it inside the space shuttle's cargo bay so they can bring it back to earth as a piece of the space junk they are trying to clean up up there on the space station. ali, kiran? >> john, thank you. you get your five bucks for mentioning canada in there, the arm. so i'm sitting with john the other day and we weren't sure whether the shuttle would take off on schedule. >> eating chicken wings? >> he gave me the sauce. john, the space shuttle, nasa is encouraging people to eat along with the space shuttle crew. i don't think that sauce is on

the menu. >> it probably is in some ways on that menu, ali, because what they are going to do is on thursday, they are having a virtual meal and it's a real all-american summer-time meal. there is going to be fried chicken. there is brisket, corn, baked beans. the six members of the space station and there you see some of that virtual food there that we have. you know, i had an opportunity to go to the space food systems laboratory out in johnson one day and one of the most favorite things that they like is the shrimp cocktail. the reason they like shrimp cocktail is the most is because it has that cocktail sauce and the spices and hot sauce. what i was told was that in space, your taste buds tend to dull so that's why they like hot sauces on a lot of their food. it gives it a lot more flavor. the other thing they like a lot

is strawberries. you know, all of that stuff is freeze dried. the commander chris ferguson, i think we have a live picture from space right now real quick. ferguson just closed the hatch on the air-lock. they are going to get to that spacewalk pretty quickly now, guys. >> we take it for such granted we can see that live. that is a live picture happening in space. i still will never get over that. >> fascinating. >> i love shrimp cocktail but freeze dried? >> john, i know you will be following this for us. good tos you. how do you feel about baked beans in space? >> i'm not sure i'm high on that either. i think i like the freeze dried ice cream. >> headlines are next. 48 minutes after the hour.

50 minutes after the hour. here are your morning headlines. former british prime minister gordon brown says rupert murdoch's newspaper illegally accessed his bank accounts and the medical records of his seriously ill son. this this morning brown and his son and rebecca brooks asked to appear before parliament next week talks to raise the debt ceiling continue today. president obama and congressional leaders come up empty again. yesterday republicans still refusing to budge on tax hikes and some democrats saying medicare is off limits. concerns over the euro zone debt crisis, stock market lower numbers. chicago residents without power following the worst storm in a decade. yulted officials say several more days to get the power back. step out of the door and into the fur nas. a heat wave engulfed half of the country.

heat advisories in 23 states. it is blamed for one death in illinois. you're caught up on today's headlines. "american morning" is back after the break. preservatives and quality ingredients like farm-picked broccoli and tender white meat chicken. lean cuisine. if you have painful, swollen joints, i've been in your shoes. one day i'm on p of the world... the next i'm saying... i have this thing called psoriatic arthritis. i had some intense pain. it progressively got worse. my rheumatologist told me about enbrel. i'm surprised how quickly my symptoms have been managed. [ male announcer ] because enbrel suppresses your immune system, it may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, and nervous system and blood disorders have occurred. before starting enbrel, your doctor should test you for tuberculosis and discuss whether you've been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. don't start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu.

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metal sculptor. a stroke cost him nearly his life and his career. >> dr. sanjay gupta has his remarkable story. >> reporter: kevin's sculptors can be find all over the world. the past seven years this denver artist hasn't been able to sculpt. >> i walked in and in my normal sarcastic manner, i was teasing him about what you think that sculptor looks better from the ground up. i took a look at him and knew something was wrong. >> reporter: what she doesn't know is her previously healthy husband had a blood clot which traveled to his brain and caused a massive stroke. >> he was moved into icu and he was on life support for 13 days. and then from there, he was in rehab hospitals for seven weeks.

>> reporter: when kevin finally came home, he wasn't able to function on his own. he had lost his memory, his ability to speak, and most of his movement. but when he was taken back up into his studio, something inside him lit up. >> he stood here, walked over and touched some of his machinery and for the first time since his stroke, there was life in his eyes. >> yes. >> i knew that day that i had to figure out how to make sure he could continue his artwork so he could continue to live and so he could could continue to come back to this world. >> reporter: kevin continued his rehabilitates and, over time, he learned to walk on his own. bits of his memory came back and he can now speak more than a hundred different words. all of that led him to be able to make art again. >> kevin sketches. we have staff that understands what he wants. and kevin is back in full swing

in creating sculptures. >> reporter: nothing of it has been easy. >> more than once, at the end of the day, i would sit back and go, what in the world am i doing? >> reporter: diane and kevin have to speak in a sort of complicated type of charades. >> you want to go someplace? >> i want keys running. >> he wants the keys to the truck so he can and tom can go someplace. >> yes. >> reporter: diane says kevin's love for his family and his fierce determination to get better brought him and his art back to life. dr. sanjay gupta, cnn reporting. , you can compare rates side by side, so you get the same coverage, often for less. wow! that is huge! [ disco playing ] and this is to remind you that you could save hundreds! yeah, that'll certainly stick with me.

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♪ new york these streets will make you ♪ >> the unofficial new york city anthem. >> it has been the last couple of years. the guy who was the lucky fan catching the 3,000th hit of derek jeter that was a home run. now they did digging of the poor guy because he has been gifted these seats he has to actually pay for them, right? they showered him with these gifts. apparently the seats cost about a grand each. >> the ones given to him the rest of the season. >> right. so he could be looking at paying $14,000 in taxes by some estimates! >> do you think he would be better off not catching jeter's home run? here are your responses on facebook. benny says, he should have caught the ball. not every day an ordinary person can be a part of history but another example our current system didn't work.